Treat in store for Manoj Kumar’s fans

Come May 15, fans of Manoj Kumar, the Bollywood star of yesteryears, will get an opportunity to be with him as the Dadasaheb Phalke awardee will be the chief guest at Maxworth’s Madhur Sangeeth, a programme of Hindi and Kannada film songs.

A recorded message from Manoj Kumar said that he would be happy to be the chief guest at the function. “I will have an opportunity to listen to melodious songs at the programme. I advise music lovers not to miss this opportunity,” the message added.

The proceeds of the musical programme would be used for charity, said Ram, the chairman of Prism Foundation, which is organising the function at Ambedkar Bhavan in association with Shivashakti Arts. “We have already identified a few non-government organisations, one of which is Samarthan, an NGO working for visually-challenged people,” Ram said.

The programme will feature songs picturised on Manoj Kumar, Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, V Ravichandran and Jayanthi, among others. These hits will be rendered by Sandalwood playback singers Priyadarshini and Chandrika Gururaj, Om Chaturvedi of Bollywood, Ramesh and Saleem.

About 1,300 people were expected to attend the musical programme, Ram said, adding that a separate section for visually-challenged and the economically weaker section of the society would be created and they would be provided musical aids.

“We are in talks with foreign musical institutions, including prominent ones in Singapore, to impart music to the public in Karnataka,” he said.

CK Jaffar Sharief, Parvathamma Rajkumar, Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, Jayanthi, Ambarish, and Sumalatha Ambarish, are among the prominent personalities who are expected to attend the function.